


Dread Knots

by snarkasaurus



Series: Spark of Warmth [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:25:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkasaurus/pseuds/snarkasaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek knows that he fucked up. He got that far (It's not like Stiles is subtle). He just...can't... figure out... fuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dread Knots

Derek picked at his sandwich, replaying the conversation from that morning in his head. He still wasn’t really sure why Stiles was upset. He knew Stiles was his equal. He knew it, he planned on acting like it; it just made no sense for him to do that in front of other people. His status as an alpha would be question if he started treating his human mate as his equal.

It wasn’t that werewolves thought humans were inferior. Well. Most of them didn’t think that. There were a few that believed that, that acted like they were better than human beings. Too, there were human beings that acted like they were better than werewolves, and humans that acted like they were better than other humans based on skin color, and so on, so Derek figured they were just… jerks. What mattered was that he didn’t act that way. 

He took a halfhearted bite and sighed, chewing slowly. By the time they’d made it home, Stiles had stopped smelling angry, and had gone to just smelling sad. It had smelled a little sour, almost like lemons, but without the sweet citrus under notes. It had colored Stiles’ scent, leaving Derek unsettled. Instinct deep inside him made him want to make his mate better, make him happy, keep him from smelling anything but happy, sated, and content. 

Derek looked down at the surface of his sandwich. Thing was, Stiles probably wasn’t going to let him do what he wanted to do. He’d fucked up. He just…he didn’t understand how. He wasn’t Laura. He hadn’t been prepped to be an alpha his whole life. He’d only stepped into it when Laura died because he had to. 

What was he actually supposed to do with a mate? He could fuck, and fuck well. He could keep Stiles happy that way, that he knew. But he knew that it took more than fucking well to make people happy, to keep mates happy and the relationship balanced. So what did he do? How did he take care of a human that wanted equality where equality didn’t exist? 

Derek shoved away from the table abruptly, wrapping his sandwich back up and throwing it into the fridge. He’d eat it later. His thoughts were going in circles and it wasn’t helping anything to keep up like this. The best thing he could probably do was find someone that knew Stiles well enough to be able to answer some questions, and give Derek some damned direction.

~*~

Scott looked up when Derek tapped on his door, looking a little surprised to see him. “Derek? What are you doing here?” he nodded toward a chair, hands full of yowling kitten. “As long as you don’t need hands, we’re good.”

Derek snorted and shook his head, watching Scott wrestle a pill down the cat’s throat. “No, just… why is Stiles so mad at me?”

Scott frowned. “Stiles is mad at you?” 

“He didn’t come to you and say anything?” Derek was a little surprised. He expected Stiles to go straight to Scott. They were best friends, after all, weren’t they? “Uh.” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, trying to figure out how to explain. “We went to see the council, present Stiles and all.” 

“Right. Standard procedure and all that. Show off the bite, get tested, have your status confirmed. How did all of that make Stiles mad at you?” Scott carried the now sulking cat to its cage and gently put it inside. 

“He says I didn’t treat him equally,” Derek confessed after a moment. “He says I didn’t support him and make the council recognize that he is my equal.” 

“Equality is really important to him,” Scott said quietly. “He’s known for most of his teen years that he was effectively a sacrifice.” When Derek opened his mouth to protest, Scott held up his hand. “You asked, let me talk, dude.” 

Derek growled quietly, but subsided. 

“He’s effectively a sacrifice. The town knew they needed the continued protection of the Hale pack. They asked the council what they could offer. The offer said a mate for the alpha. I never understood why, but that was the Council’s price. That was your _mom’s_ price. She was on the council at the time, and she’s the one that picked out Stiles.” 

Derek frowned. He didn’t know that. “How do you know that?” 

“We looked when Stiles was told. His mom and your mom were friends. They worked together, trying to make things more equal between werewolves and humans. The request by the town council is public knowledge, so when Stiles was told that he’d been requested and promised as mate to Laura Hale, we went looking for why.” Scott finished wiping down the exam table and focused on Derek. 

Derek was frowning; trying to work through the information he had just been given. He never really connected his mother’s friend with his husband, but it made sense. When he wasn’t ignoring things from his past, they tended to make more sense. He should probably…do that more often. 

“All right, so Stiles was the requested mate for the future alpha of Beacon Hills. Why?” Derek asked. 

“And everyone says I don’t listen,” Scott grumbled. “Again. Talia Hale and Evelyn Stilinski worked together for equality between werewolves and humans. What’s Stiles’ mad at you about? Not treating him like an equal, right?” He looked at Derek expectantly. 

Derek stared back, uncomfortably aware that he still didn’t quite get it. Yeah, okay, so his mother and Stiles’ mother wanted equality. So did Stiles. He said it was something that he’d talked about a lot with Laura. Derek knew that Stiles was just as strong—if not stronger in some ways—than he was, and considered his human husband his equal. So what was the problem? 

"Just think about it, dude,” Scott said with a sigh. “I’ve got to get back to work.” 

“Yeah…yeah, okay, thanks,” Derek said distractedly. He left the clinic, considering everything Scott had told him. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t really recognize where he was wandering until he found himself in front of his beta, Isaac’s, front door. He knocked, still on autopilot, and wandered in when Isaac opened the door. 

“Hi, how are you, sure, come on in, I don’t mind,” Isaac muttered with an eye roll. “It’s a good thing Scott texted me and warned me you might be coming. I’d be worried about you otherwise.

“Sorry,” Derek said absently. “Stiles is mad at me.” 

“Stiles isn’t mad at you; Stiles is disappointed and readjusting his world view,” Isaac said. “He expected you to understand and support him, and you didn’t, and he has to adjust to that. He may have known that you weren’t Laura on the surface, but he’s spent years preparing himself to be Laura’s mate, Laura’s support, Laura’s equal. It’s unrealistic for either of you to expect the other to understand ‘it’,” and Isaac used finger quotes to indicate the beyond nebulous nature of the article, “and to get it right immediately. He knows that. You know that. You’ll both get it if you actually think about it.”

Derek stared at Isaac. “The hell?” 

“What, do you think I don’t pay attention to anything?”

“I’m more confused about why you know what the hell is going on.” Derek blinked in confusion. 

“I told you. Scott texted me. And I know Stiles. I know him well enough, at least, to take an educated guess about why he’s acting this way. Come on.” Isaac walked into the kitchen. By the time Derek followed him, there was a soda waiting for him out on the counter. “Dude, you have got to stop thinking of him as Laura’s legacy and think of him as your mate, your responsibility, and your life partner. It’s the only way you’re going to make this work.”

“Well, it would be nice if he didn’t think of me that way,” Derek grumped. “We’ve both had the same amount of time to get over it.” And it was his sister that died, too. Slammed into by a tractor trailer, dead in an instant, never had a chance. 

Isaac raised an eyebrow and sipped his drink. “And you’re no more over it than he is, so why do you expect him to be able to just ‘get over it’? He lost the person he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. You lost your sister. It’s been four months? Not even four months, right? That’s not the kind of thing you recover easily from, dude, and you should give yourself both a little more time.” 

Derek poked at his soda can, processing that. He wasn’t being entirely fair, was he? But…Laura was his _sister_. How was… 

“Derek, did you visit him in those months before you married him?” Isaac asked. 

“Wanted to,” Derek said uneasily. “Was going to.” 

“Why didn’t you?” 

“It felt…It seemed…” Derek shifted in his seat, trying to find the words. “At first, it seemed disrespectful to Laura. And then,” he squirmed at how stupid he felt, looking at this in hindsight. “The Sheriff asked me to visit, but the longer it went, the more awkward it felt, and I was trying to secure my position, and everything was fucked up, and then I just sort of…ran out of time.” 

Isaac studied him for a moment before letting out a long breath and shaking his head. “You’re a fucking idiot, Hale.” 

Derek snarled at him. 

“No, I mean it. You’re an idiot. If you can’t keep your shit together with your mate, you’re not in a place to lead the pack anyway, right? There’s a reason your position wasn’t secured until you mated, and proved you mated.” 

Derek ran a hand through his hair, and explained, “It’s about balance and control, on one hand. There’s strength that comes from the mating bond that we can draw from, and gives us not only more stability and ability to control ourselves, but on the other hand, it just amplifies our strength. Two wells to draw from.” 

“Even with a human.” 

“Even with a human. _Especially_ with a human, if everything Laura ever told me is true. There’s nothing to take away from their power because they’re not using it for anything else, like controlling their own transformations.” Derek snorted. “That part never made any sense to me, though, with the way everyone reacts to human mates.”

Isaac fiddled with the tab on his soda for a while, and didn’t say anything. He looked like he was lost in thought, and Derek didn’t want to interrupt that, so he stayed quiet. When Isaac did finally speak again, his tone was hesitant; like he wasn’t sure Derek would want to listen. “Maybe that’s the point?” he said. 

“What do you mean?” Derek asked with a frown. “What’s the point?”

“Who told you it was shameful to have a human mate?”

“No one ever said it was shameful. It’s just the way people react. That it’s a bad thing.” Derek blinked, frowning. “That’s your point, isn’t it? Why was it made out to be a bad thing, when it’s a _good_ thing?” 

Isaac raised an eyebrow, sipped his Coke, and didn’t answer. 

“Sonofabitch.” 

After that, Derek wasn’t really interested in talking. He was stymied. He could answer the why all too fucking well. If the council kept this information to themselves, if they made it seem like having a human mate was a bad thing, except as part of an arrangement like Derek had with Stiles (and most of those wound up with the human taking the bite, so he wasn’t sure if that even counted), then they would be the only ones that knew what kind of power boost it was. 

Derek knew. He knew because he could feel Stiles in his chest, a warm spark of life that pulsed with energy and power and everything good. He knew that he could draw on that power if he needed to. 

“Oh my god, go home,” Isaac muttered, herding his alpha to the door. “Apologize. Stop being an idiot. Give in.” He shut the door behind Derek before he could ask what he was supposed to give in to. 

Not that it mattered. Derek walked to his car, frowning thoughtfully. He didn’t think he was really ready to go home yet. He may have half of an answer, but he still didn’t know the biggest one that he hadn’t even realized was bugging him.

~*~

“Derek? Come on in. What can I do for you?” Sheriff Stilinski gestured to the chair in front of his desk, leaning back as his son-in-law settled into it. “What brings you down here?”

“A few things,” Derek said, shifting to settle. This wasn’t going to be the most comfortable conversation he’d ever had, and he knew it, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do. He had to ask. “First, I’d like to apologize to you. I should have come to see Stiles before…before.” 

The Sheriff raised both eyebrows. “Apology accepted, though I don’t really think I’m the one you should be apologizing to.” He paused. “Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you?” 

“Anxiety, mostly,” Derek said after a moment. “Grief at first, over Laura’s death, then worry that I’d left it too long, and it just…” he trailed off with a grimace. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world to admit, especially to his new father-in-law. 

“I can understand that, son, but you remember that you weren’t the only one to lose someone, right? Stiles lost his fiancé. And before that, he lost his mother. You have that much in common.” 

Derek…knew that. He’d forgotten that somehow, but he knew that. That made him feel worse. “Think he’d accept an apology?” he asked, shifting in his seat. 

“Probably, but that’s something you’re going to have to work out between the two of you. I don’t think that’s why you came, though, is it?” Sheriff Stilinski gave him a knowing look. 

Damn the man’s perceptiveness, and also, his own self for coming here. “Yes. I…Stiles is mad at me. He says I didn’t support him at the council meeting this morning. That If I don’t act like we’re equal in public, there’s no way anyone is going to treat him as though he’s my equal. I know he’s my equal, so I don’t really get why it matters.” 

Stilinski was quiet for a few moments, studying Derek’s face. He must have found something, because he finally spoke. “Do you know why Stiles wants to study supernatural history?” he asked. 

Taken off guard by the question, Derek floundered for a moment. “He said it was because he wanted to teach.” He blinked. “Is that not…is that wrong?” 

“No, he was telling you the truth, as far as it goes.” Stilinski rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “He wants to make a difference. He wants to have some impact on something that can change the status quo.” He smirked. “You can blame your mother and his for that.” 

Coupled with Scott’s revelation from earlier, that made a disturbing amount of sense, and Derek wanted to know why no one had considered it before. “He wants to make a difference,” he repeated slowly. “He wants to change…what? The view of werewolves? Or the view of humans?” 

“Now that I can’t answer. I love my son, but there are times, and those are numerous and frequent, that I have no idea what’s going through his head. I suggest you ask your husband.” Sheriff Stilinski raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,: Derek said, frowning. “You’re…yeah. Is there anything else you can tell me?” 

“I can’t tell if you’re wise to come to me, or desperate,” the sheriff said dryly. “Just…let yourself love him, Derek. He’ll love you if you let him. He’ll already be as loyal as you could ever hope for. He’s committed to you, and that means he’ll die before he betrays you. He wants to love you, though. He may not say it, but I know my son. He’s aching for someone to love. Let that person be you.”

Derek nodded, uncomfortable by the conversation even as he recognized its validity. The passion his mate displayed the night before was a damned good clue as to how much love Stiles had inside him. Passion didn’t necessarily equate to love. It often didn’t. It was the particular way Stiles responded that made Derek think that way. 

There was also the fact his sister had adored Stiles. Just before they’d come back to Beacon Hills, she’d told Derek that the one thing she was looking forward to the most was Stiles. He hadn’t understood, scoffing at her eagerness to be mated to a human. To him, it hadn’t made sense. Not then. 

He kind of thought it might now. 

“Thank you for your time, sir,” Derek said. He stood, causing the Sheriff to stand, too, and offer his hand. Derek shook it, noting as he did that the sheriff smelled a lot like Stiles did. Not in the expected “they are related” way, but in a particular way that he couldn’t quite place. It distracted him a little, but not so much that he wasn’t able to respond to his father-in-law’s continuing words. 

“I mean it, Derek. Let him love you. Love him. Open up to each other. I’d be willing to bet that you’re going to find out that you’ve got a lot more in common than you think you do. A lot of the same goals. You come at it differently, but I think you want the same things.” 

“I’ll remember that,” Derek said. “Stiles said something this morning, before we went to the council meeting. Something about having you over for dinner soon. Just let us know when.” 

Pleasantries exchanged, promise to call Stiles and set up a time for dinner extracted, and the two men parted, both of them very concerned. Just about very different things. 

Derek sat in his car for a few minutes, thinking about what the Sheriff had said. Stiles had a lot in common with him. They shared similar goals. Was that what Scott and Isaac had been trying to tell him? What Stiles had tried to tell him? He kind of thought it was, but he still wasn’t sure it made sense. Why would they have common goals? They were two different creatures, species, people. 

He thought about what Scott said, about their mothers arranging this, when it was Laura and Stiles. He turned the key in the ignition, and backed out of his space, considering that. Talia Hale never did anything without a reason, nor did she ever do anything by half measures. He could only assume Mrs. Stilinski was the same way, based on what he knew of Stiles. He didn’t remember her at all. 

Derek could easily imagine she was a lot like his husband, though. His lips twitched, thinking about Stiles’ reaction to being told no tie. There had been a lot of hilarious flailing, concerned yelping, and dubious looks. Sheriff Stilinski wasn’t like that, so he had to assume that the basis for that behavior was Stiles’ mother. He kind of thought he would have liked her. 

Like he was beginning to like his husband. There was a lot there that Derek liked, even if it confused him. Like this insistence on public equality. Derek tried to figure out why it bothered him so much. He didn’t really care what other people thought of him. The fire had burned that out of him—and he was the only one that could make that pun, thank you very much. If you cared what people thought of you when what people thought of you was that you were a child to be pitied, coddled, cosseted, and treated like you had no mind to think for yourself any more, you tended to go a little crazy. 

He cared about his position as alpha. His pack was small: Scott, even if it was a struggle with him, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Peter, his sister Cora, though she was off at college at the moment, Jackson, and now Stiles. He knew that with Stiles would come a few more, including Jackson’s girlfriend Lydia, and Scott’s (and Isaac’s? He still hadn’t figured that out) girlfriend, Allison. They were halfway to pack, anyway, and he knew they were friends with Stiles. He might as well give in to humans in his pack. 

Derek turned down the road that would eventually drop him at his front door, and frowned. Humans in his pack. Something that the council discouraged because it was dangerous to the werewolves, having to rein themselves in so they didn’t hurt their human packmates. The same as what they insisted would happen to any werewolf that took a human as mate, and that human didn’t take the bite. 

How much of that was true? How much of that, Derek wanted to know, was propaganda, and how much of it was truth? How much of that was… Derek cringed, realizing that exact worry and consideration was the impetus behind Stiles desire to be treated equally, and Derek had….not even asked. 

In his own defense, he didn’t really have a lot of information to believe anything but what he was taught, and Stiles hadn’t _said anything_. That part frustrated him, and made him feel a little better. He wasn’t the only one at fault. 

He reached home, then, and he made the instant decision to apologize to Stiles, and ask him why. Why was it so important, please, explain it. He wanted to understand. He scrambled—as much as he ever scrambled—to turn off the car, grab his stuff, and get inside. 

“Stiles?” he called once he was through the door. “Stiles, I’m sorry. I should have listened.” Derek listened for a response, trying to locate his mate in the house. He couldn’t hear anything, no muffled replied or curses, and tried again. “Stiles? Where are you, I want to apologize.” He checked all the rooms on the first floor, frown increasing when he didn’t see Stiles, or even a sign of Stiles anywhere. 

He went upstairs, ears now listening for a heartbeat as well as any vocal response. Derek made it to their bedroom, and felt his blood go cold. All traces of Stiles were removed, the bed perfectly made, exactly like it had been yesterday morning, before stiles had moved in. 

And there was no trace of Stiles in the house at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Halfway through! It's looking like there'll be six total stories in this series. It'll also speed up a little bit, in terms of time passing. Thank you for reading. 
> 
> I am on tumblr as [snarkasaurus](http://snarkasaurus.tumblr.com). I do morning coffee snippets, prompts, and flail around randomly, if you wanna follow me. :)


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